From Broadway to Netflix, Alex Breaux's World Is Full of Stranger Things

Alex Breaux is no stranger to playing roles that place him in the middle of a small town mystery. In 2019, the Juillard-trained actor took a break from the stage to focus on a few onscreen roles, including a part in the upcoming fifth and final season of Stranger Things as Lt. Robert Akers. Now, his return to Broadway as Dr. Brenner in Stranger Things: The First Shadow feels serendipitous. It comes a decade after the actor made his Broadway debut portraying Brodie in the 2014 revival of The Real Thing alongside Cynthia Nixon.

As a former wide receiver/punt returner at Harvard University and two-time Ivy League champion, some of Breaux’s earlier roles leaned into his athletic background, like the Olympics-aspiring swimmer Ray in Red Speedo. However, his more recent credits, especially on screen, like Timothy McVeigh in Showtime’s Waco: The Aftermath allowed him to explore new facets. He credits these more psychologically inclined roles as looming large in his preparation for taking on the role of Dr. Brenner, a research scientist whose burning ambitions can cloud his judgment. The play took home 2025 Tony Awards for Best Scenic Design, Best Lighting Design and Best Sound Design, winning over audiences with its larger-than-life, interactive feel. The actor chatted with Broadway.com about taking his talents back to the stage, his favorite messaging in the show and how his past roles have inspired his creative choices for breathing new life into Dr. Brenner’s backstory.

This is your first time on stage since playing Ferdinand in Judgment Day at the Park Avenue Armory in 2019. What has it been like to make that transition from film and TV to being back on stage?
I hadn’t auditioned in a room in six years, so I knew I was gonna be working my nerves. I had three days to prepare and I knew that the audition environment was going to be difficult, so I walked on a treadmill at a very loud, busy gym and tried to memorize all my lines with all these distractions. I also had my girlfriend and her mother pretend to be auditors and I rented a space and had them eat and take phone calls in the middle of my “audition.” But I knew crushing the preparation meant that for three days I wouldn't sleep, but then I might have a beautiful 15-month experience. The audition experience gave me a lot of confidence because I was at Ripley Greer Studios, which is right by the NYPD Precinct on 8th and 34th–it's a really difficult audition space because it's so loud. I'm also a pretty physical guy, and I was thirsty for the fuller experience that stage work gives an actor. There's a different kind of stamina, but there's also a momentum that can be built because you’re getting a beginning, middle and end every night, and that's extremely satisfying as a performer.

Compared to past roles, was the transition easier at all since the show is so cinematic? The Marquis Theatre also seems like the perfect location for a show of this standard because it feels like a movie theater.
Definitely. The show was initially supposed to be at the Majestic Theater, but having it at the Marquis ties into the Stranger Things universe. The ambiance feels very Americana and almost like a mall, even in the entryway—the carpet is so Saved by the Bell ‘90s. It’s been an interesting critical reception juxtaposed by the audience that is so stoked to be there. I open the second act in a scene with Henry and often you’re just hearing the entire audience eating popcorn and chatting. Sixty percent of the audience are first time theater-goers so they don’t have learned etiquette. Our audience is more extroverted which matches the show. It’s a show that is aiming to entertain and we aren’t shy. The audience has license to feel like they’re in a movie theater, and it doesn't bother us at all.

Being on stage also allows you to have a different experience doing the same show every night. Are there any changes you make to keep things exciting?
Oh yeah. Louis [McCartney], who plays Henry Creel, and I do different stuff every day to change up the blocking to poke or probe each other. In film and TV, which last forever in posterity, there's usually no to little rehearsal–you basically do a Jackson Pollock and throw paint on the canvas hoping that it's gonna tell the story well, but it's a real leap of faith. And then for theater, which is ephemeral, the Etch A Sketch disappears every night and gets replaced the next day. It's such an iterative process where you still find extra wrinkles in the scenes and character dynamics.

It’s also a rare opportunity to be able to play these two different roles in different mediums that explore the beginning of the story of Stranger Things and the ending of it. What has it felt like to explore that paradox?
It honestly would have been an advantage to do the play first and then enter the last season of the TV show because there's so much backstory in understanding what Dr. Brenner is studying and experimenting on, and Vecna's backstory and how that links to who Eleven is and what she's been through. I'm going to watch season five very differently as a fan and viewer after seeing the stage play. There are Easter eggs littered throughout our show that will show up in season five and vice versa. If you start with season five and then come to our show, there will be callbacks that you'll recognize and echoes of each other that will be satisfying. As an actor, it's pretty cool to be a part of something that means this much to this many people and is so indelible. There just aren't that many things that people agree on, even in entertainment.

Some of your recent TV credits, like Waco: The Aftermath and Joe Pickett, also find you at the center of small town mystery and drama. Would you say they helped prepare you for your roles in Stranger Things, both on screen and on stage?
Yeah, definitely. There is a quote from a Danish family therapist, Jesper Juul: “A child whose integrity is harmed does not stop loving his parents, he stops loving himself.” When I was playing Timothy McVeigh [in Waco: The Aftermath], there are these moments where he's witnessed his father being embarrassed of him, and I think that changed everything for him. And from what's told about Brenner's relationship with his father, I wonder how this alpha male Navy midshipman would feel about his nerdy scientific-minded son.

How would you compare Dr. Brenner to Henry Creel? Do you find that the father-son relationships throughout the show are similar, including the storyline of young Hopper and his father, Chief Hopper?
In the ship scene that opens our play, they mention that it’s Brenner’s birthday on the day that the USS Eldridge does this invisibility experiment. His father says, “It's my son's birthday,” and he says he hates him. Going off of that, I would imagine at Brenner’s core, there is someone who hasn't felt unconditional love and probably feels like an outsider like Henry. I think the play does investigate what it feels like to be an alien, whether you're the new kid at school or whether your parents don't understand you or see you. I can imagine what might be dragging his ambition instead of driving it is the unresolved psychology of his childhood and this drive for achievement to find some kind of identity. Some people are born with ambition and it's wrapped up in ego, but it's also wrapped up in insecurity. I think that intensity shows in the way I'm trying to play Brenner as opposed to Matthew Modine [in the Stranger Things TV series], who has such an elegance in measurement through his experimental bedside manner. I want to see a younger Brenner who makes mistakes, who overreaches, who isn't in control of his emotions at all times. And in that way, we see some of the lessons he may have learned on the way to becoming who we see in the TV show.

In your opinion, do you think Dr. Brenner actually has good intentions and is just misled, or do you think he knows what he’s doing is harmful?
I have no doubt that he has goals to move science forward. I don't think he's a mustache twirling villain. He wants Henry to self-actualize and to reach his potential. This darker, more powerful impulse needs to be explored. There’s a moment where Brenner is challenging Henry to test if he’s powerful enough to kill a person. That potential capacity scares Henry and he steps off the treadmill and says, “I don't want to do this,” and that inflames Brenner, I think from a parental aspect, where he doesn’t want him to avoid doing it because he’s scared. I think there's no bigger compliment your children could give you than to live boldly and self-actualize. In a complicated way, I think the logic for Brenner is “No, you’re denying destiny,” like Michael Jordan quitting basketball to play baseball.

As a director yourself, what have you been taking away from working with Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin on Stranger Things: The First Shadow?
My experience with Justin and Stephen has been pretty special. My theory on directing is that the breadth of your vocabulary and your capacity to communicate defines how good of a director you can be. I've really loved working with both of them because they say very little but give pointed, actionable direction. Stephen will pull me aside and ask me to do the next scene and then name a color, like red, and then he walks away and leaves me to synthesize that and go for something new. As for Justin, he sometimes looks at scenes as athletic events and that can add fuel to a fire if you're seeing it as a competition for two minds ante-ing up on each other. I also think our show really achieved slick, seamless scene transitions which I appreciate. To keep the momentum of a play that is as disparate in tone as our show is really important. It’s also a hallmark of the Duffer Brothers' style. In the TV show, they love a smash cut. I think our show has similar off ramps and on ramps to scenes that delight the audience. I'm lucky that most of my scenes are two-person scenes, but watching them direct when there's 30 actors on stage and one by one, day by day, go into what each character is doing and what their individual story and track is…having that attention to detail was very inspiring because we had six weeks of tech and up until the minute before we opened, they were tinkering and racking their brains on how to make the show better and enjoying a collaborative experience with us.

Do you have a favorite scene, moment or line from the show that pertains to the entire storyline of Stranger Things?
What resonates with me as a universal message is the show telling people what makes you weird or makes you susceptible to cruelty in the world—the things that people might make fun of you for—are what make you special and that's your superpower. I think that's a really lovely, inclusive sentiment and one that's heroic at the end. My favorite line in the play, the one that makes the hair on my neck jump, comes during a run-in between Joyce and Henry towards the end of the play when Joyce is trying to help Henry and he rasps out: “No one made me anything. I made myself.” I find that extremely frightening but also, in that moment, we have Henry the character actually owning his power. It feels like all of a sudden he takes the steering wheel in a way that the audience has been fighting for him not to. He’s choosing to lean into this darker impulse and explore that for himself, essentially saying, “I am not a victim. Do not feel sorry for me. No one did this to me. This is who I want to be.”